New UC Contracts for
Livermore, Los Alamos

By Ron Kolb

The University of California,
the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the U.S. Department
of Energy have signed new management and operations contracts for the
Livermore and Los Alamos national labs. The agreements, announced at the
UC Board of Regents meeting last week, expand the contracts' requirements
and extend them to Sept. 30, 2005.

Berkeley Lab's current five-year contract, due to
expire on Sept. 30, 2002, was not part of the agreement and will be negotiated
separately in the future.

New contractual provisions for management improvement
include creation of a new UC senior management position of Vice President
for Lab Management, reporting to the University President, and a requirement
for UC to obtain outside expertise in security and project management,
both key issues in the negotiations.

The partner agencies agreed that the defense labs
will be strengthened by the modifications. UC Senior Vice President Jud
King said, "UC has committed to a vigorous contract, a new slate
of performance standards, and increased accountability."

And outgoing DOE Secretary Bill Richardson added,
"This is a significant move forward for the department, the defense
labs, and for national security. The work that these labs perform is vital
to the nation and, with the provisions of these new contracts, the labs
will receive the support and management assistance they need to succeed."

The agreement assures that the historic University
management of the labs, in effect since 1943, will continue.

The modified contracts preserve the performance-based
management approach pioneered by the University nearly 10 years ago and
an academic atmosphere at the laboratories. They continue the philosophy
of no financial gain or loss for the University in its management.

A key element of the contract is an appendix that
outlines important milestones and objectives for the accomplishment of
operational process improvements. The University must meet these milestones
and objectives in order to be eligible to earn performance fees. Earned
performance fees not required to cover costs of managing the laboratories
are returned to the labs to support research.

The contracts allow DOE to reduce the fee for serious
incidents in the areas of security and safety, and as part of increased
requirements for contractor accountability, also allow the Secretary of
Energy to direct the removal of an employee from work assigned under the
contract if such an action is consistent with state law and regulations.

Such action must be preceded by a 60-day notice to
the university, a recommendation for the university to act based on due
process, and must comply with state law.

Given California's faltering
electricity supplies and skyrocketing prices, it's no surprise that a
gang of print and TV news reporters descended on Bldg. 66 on Friday, Jan.
12, for an expert demonstration of how to save energy. And since the experts
were school kids, the ideas were guaranteed fresh.

Fourth-grader Kate Flor-Stagnato from Scotch Plains,
NJ; fifth-graders Jonathan Ioviero from Medina, NY, and Michael Torrey
from Fremont, CA; and Annie Austin, a sixth-grader from Philadelphia,
exhibited devices named the Beeping Air Conditioner, the Light Searcher,
the Miniature Hydroelectric Power Plant, and the Plugger - ideas that
started as kids' sketches and were brought to life through long hours
of volunteer effort by the Lab's Engineering Division.

The students were the winners of an inventors' contest
sponsored by the Department of Energy's EnergySmart Schools program and
supported by Owens Corning, manufacturer of insulation and other building
products. In addition to shop talk and demonstrations, the Friday afternoon
session featured presentations by Lab Director Charles Shank, Berkeley
Mayor Shirley Dean and Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison, along with officials
from DOE and Owens Corning.

After Director Shank introduced the children as "the
next generation, who will solve our energy problems," Mayor Dean
presented plaques honoring each child and read a proclamation naming January
12 EnergySmart Schools Inventors Day in Berkeley. Graciously thanking
those who made the event possible, Dean made a point of emphasizing "the
treasure of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, a wonderful facility to have in our
city."

The event's high point was meeting the inventors and
hearing them explain their gadgets, set up in the Bldg. 66 conference
room. The inventions themselves had been built in kit form by members
of the Engineering Division, who worked on their own time, even during
the year-end holidays. Engineering's Assistant Director Bill Edwards emphasized
that, even though the urge to make improvements was sometimes strong,
staying true to the inventors' original intentions was a guiding principle.

Three of the four winning devices were designed to
help save energy directly, by warning of lights or appliances left on
or windows left open when an air conditioner is running. Annie Austin's
Plugger sounds a beeper when power consumption in a wall circuit exceeds
a preset level. Tony Hansen led the Engineering team that gathered the
necessary parts - a wattmeter, power strip, a couple of energy-consuming
appliances such as a hair dryer and coffee-maker - and built the handsome
display. Rick Diamond of the Environmental Energy Technology Division
acted as Annie's scientific mentor.

Jonathan Ioviero intends the control panel of his
Light Searcher to be mounted by the front door so that anyone leaving
the house can check to see if lights have been left on: his initial sketch
has switches labeled "keep it on button" and "turn it off
button." Engineering's Rob Duarte led the team that wired a beautiful
doll's house with working light fixtures and controls operated from a
panel in front. Jonathan's mentor was Owens Corning engineer Sheri Whisler.

Kate Flor-Stagnato's Beeping Air Conditioner beeps
if nearby windows, equipped with sensors, are left open while the air
conditioner is running. Kate's mentor was Michael Siminovitch from EETD,
who praised her "elegant idea" and had special appreciation
for the engineers, led by Bill Edwards and Tony Vranicar, "who carried
the heavy water" and "beautifully transformed a child's simple
sketch" into a persuasive demonstration.

The most unusual invention was conceived by Michael
Torrey of Forest Park Elementary School in nearby Fremont. By mounting
miniature water wheels and generators in household faucets, his Miniature
Hydroelectric Power Plant aims to recover some of the energy already spent
pumping water uphill. Michael was supported by Owens Corning engineer
Hong Dao, and Ken Chow and a large crew of other Berkeley Lab volunteers
turned Michael's well-thought-out invention into physical reality, using
a Pelton wheel, a generator, and a display panel that could be switched
to power a fan, light up a bulb, or charge a battery.

Chow and Dao helped Michael assemble his demonstration,
and it was clear from their discussion that Michael had a good grasp of
the science. He found the Pelton wheel fascinating in itself: a device
with curved buckets, it was invented in 1881 by California engineer L.A.
Pelton and is extremely efficient for a low-tech machine, able to tolerate
"load abuses" - wide swings in water pressure - "without
causing disasters such as blowing up or breaking its shafting."

Michael's teacher John Ford, who encouraged him to
enter the Energy-Smart Schools competition after seeing an article in
Time for Kids magazine, says that a visitor was so impressed by his design
that he is installing a Pelton wheel in the stream on his property in
the Sierra foothills.

Michael's dad says that he got the idea for the device
because "he has spent a lot of time with his mother's relatives in
Mexico, where water pressure is variable." Not one to take high pressure
for granted, Michael says, "I figured why not use water power to
charge batteries that can be used around the house, so we can save other
types of energy."

Ken Chow says that before it could make a major dent
in energy conservation, the device would have to be miniaturized, incorporated
in plumbing units, and installed in lots of homes and offices. "Water
use is intermittent, so savings in one home would average only a few watts
a day - enough to keep a couple of night-lights burning." Even modest
savings could add up, but meanwhile, says Chow, "it's a good lesson
to learn that recovering energy is a lot harder than not using it in the
first place."

By late Friday afternoon, the young inventors had
been going strong since their arrival in the Bay Area the day before,
with a full schedule of lab tours, chalk talks, and official dinners that
would keep them busy late into the evening. Kate Flor-Stagnato missed
the presentations because of a tummy ache, and her older sister had to
stand in for her. As for Annie Austin, "I'm dead," said the
sixth grader, who resembles a miniature Bette Midler, although she admitted
that all the attention had recharged her personal batteries.

But their sacrifices were not in vain, and the press
and TV reporters got what they came for. Stories about what the San Francisco
Chronicle dubbed the "Children of Invention" ran in dozens of
newspapers and television stations, locally and across the nation.

Whether or not the individual gadgets are put into
use, the motives behind them may well inspire what Owens Corning chairman
Glen Hiner called "the top environmental issue of the new millennium."
If so, as Fremont Mayor Gus Morrison said, paraphrasing the Bible, it
will be because "a little child has led them."

* * *

For more information, including original sketches
and photos, visit http://eetd.lbl.gov/inventors/. For more about EnergySmart
Schools and the Inventors Contest, visit http://www.eren.doe.gov/energysmartschools.

A Better Way to Test Auto Bodies

By Lynn Yarris

Engineering Division's Deb
Hopkins wanted to build a car with a body made of light-weight composite
materials and a quality-performance internal combustion engine that would
get about 80 miles to a gallon of gas. She didn't get the money for that,
but she did get the funding to investigate the nondestructive evaluation
(NDE) techniques that will be needed if such vehicles are to ever become
a commercial reality.

"Lightweight composite materials must be adhesively
bonded, which means the tear-down safety inspections of spot-welded steel
structures can't be used on them," says Hopkins, now in her fourth
year on this research, which is funded under the Partnership for a New
Generation of Vehicles, a collaboration between the federal government
and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research.

Even for conventional welding, the tear-down method
of testing, in which the structural components of a vehicle are literally
torn down to assess the integrity of their welds, could stand improvement,
Hopkins says. In a typical U.S. automobile manufacturing plant today,
production components are pulled off the assembly line at regular intervals
for a tear-down inspection. Not only is this a time-consuming and costly
procedure, it is also only a statistical sampling and not an inspection
of every component that is manufactured.

"Online nondestructive evaluation techniques
offer the promise of testing one hundred percent of all production components
in real time with the ability to spot problems immediately," Hopkins
says. "It is also the only way to ensure the integrity of adhesive-bonded
joints in lightweight composites."

In addition to monitoring product quality, online
NDE can also be used to monitor the production process and identify areas
in which the process can be improved.

Deb Hopkins of the Engineering Division is devising
a noninvasive technique for evaluating the integrity of structural components
of vehicles. She is shown here with her two assistants, Mehdi Malek-Ahmadi
(right) and Frederic Reverdy, inside the steel frame-rail used in the
experiments.

Says Hopkins, "With online NDE, the automobile
industry should be able to improve production efficiency and reduce waste."

For use in an automobile manufacturing plant, NDE
techniques have to be able to reliably operate under hot, dusty, and noisy
conditions. Diagnostics must also be performed quickly and accurately.
Hopkins and her colleagues in Engineering Division (ED) have been working
to develop NDE sensors and data-processing and modeling tools. To date
they have experimented with a wide range of NDE methods including acoustics
and infrared thermography.

The acoustic NDE techniques being examined entail
exciting a component with a transducer which converts electrical pulses
into mechanical stress waves, then analyzing the elastic waves - body,
surface or standing - that are generated. With body and surface waves,
test results are derived from wave attenuation, frequency content and
velocity. With standing waves, resonance is analyzed to measure frequency
response, mode shapes and damping characteristics.

"It is well established that these waves are
sensitive to the presence of flaws, voids, cracks, heterogeneities, or
some other change in material properties," says Hopkins. "For
example, a crack will reflect some of the wave energy, slow and attenuate
the wave, and change the resonance properties of the component being tested."

Hopkins and her group have been using a steel frame-rail
as a model for associating their measurements with specific characteristics
of spotwelds. The success of any NDE technique in the automobile industry
depends upon its ability to quickly and accurately distinguish between
critical defects that affect the structural integrity of a component and
defects in low-stress areas that would not significantly affect the component's
stiffness or strength.

"Cycle times in the auto industry typically run
about 15 to 20 seconds, and the data acquisition and analysis of an online
real-time NDE must be fast enough to render a go/no-go decision within
this timeframe," says Hopkins. "That's the major challenge for
the use of NDE techniques in automobile manufacturing."

With acoustic-based NDE techniques, the tradeoff is
between speed and resolution, according to Hopkins.

"If you have the time and access to the components,
you can make highly detailed measurements with acoustic techniques,"
she says. "The faster we can learn to acquire and interpret data
the better our measurements will be."

Infrared (IR) thermography offers speed and high resolution
plus the advantage of full-field imaging. Measurements for this NDE technique
are derived from changes in thermal resistance that arise in the flow
of heat through the components. These changes can be detected by IR cameras
that are sensitive to surface temperature differences of less than 0.1
degrees Celsius.

"IR thermography can be used to characterize
defects in welds and voids in materials such as gaps in adhesive layers
or air bubbles," says Hopkins. "These defects and voids have
a much higher thermal resistance than the surrounding material."

To utilize IR thermography, a heat flow must first
be established through the components to be tested. This is done by heating
one side of the component while the opposite side is cooled. The resolution
obtained through IR thermography depends upon the thickness and thermal
conductivity of the material being tested, but Hopkins says the technique
is applicable to a wide range of lightweight composites.

The use of more lightweight metals (aluminum and magnesium)
and composite materials in place of steel in the components of automobile
bodies could reduce overall vehicle weight by 40 percent or more, and
make the dream of 80 miles-per-gallon an industry standard.

Says Hopkins, "We've proven that acoustic and
IR thermography NDE techniques work well in a laboratory setting. The
next step is to show that they can be made to work equally well in a factory
setting."

Working with Hopkins on this project are ED's Daniel
Turler and Murat Karaca, plus Seiji Nakagawa and Kurt Nihei of Berkeley
Lab's Earth Sciences Division.

DOE Transition News

Abraham Confirmed, Urged To Act Fast on Energy

Last week the U.S. Senate confirmed
the nomination of Spencer Abraham for Secretary of the Department of
Energy. At his confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Energy Committee
called upon the new Energy Secretary to act quickly on the California
energy crisis, as well as on other pressing energy issues. In response,
Abraham promised a "balanced" approach to energy policy, although
he made it clear that the Bush administration plans to promote production
more than the Clinton administration did.

"Certainly, recent developments in California's
electricity markets and the Northeast's heating oil supply evidence the
importance of the department's responsibility to develop a national energy
policy," Abraham told the committee.

"President Bush and I are deeply committed to
developing an energy policy that includes increasing domestic production
of energy in an environmentally responsible manner, increasing our use
of renewable energy, decreasing our reliance on imported oil, and developing
new technologies that conserve fossil fuels and reduce energy-related
pollution."

Abraham declined to elaborate on steps the Bush administration
might take on California's power problems, although this week he did issue
a two-week extension of emergency orders requiring certain energy producers
to provide natural gas and electricity supplies to California utility
companies.

Abraham also told the Senate Committee he no longer
believes DOE should be eliminated. Circumstances have changed since he
cosponsored three bills to kill the DOE during his six years as a Republican
senator from Michigan, he said. Among them: "The changing energy
situation and enactment of the National Nuclear Security Administration
Act last year, which restructured the department to improve agency management,
have significantly altered the equation."

Calling DOE's missions "vital to our national
interests," Abraham also expressed strong support for DOE's science
and technology programs.

"The national laboratories are national treasures,"
he said. "My commitment is to continue to work with the Senate to
be an advocate for increased spending for science and technology."

Richardson Offers Advice to His Successor

Former Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson says his successor will need close ties to the White House
to make him effective as the United States' top energy official.

"He has to establish with the White House that
energy policy is made at the Energy Department," Richardson said
in an interview with Inside Energy. "The energy secretary has to
have influence with the president and the flexibility that I've had. Otherwise,
he will be eaten up in the interagency process and in the Congress."

When asked what he considered to be his own legacy
at DOE, Richardson responded: "We made this department important.
We dramatically raised the visibility of this department … and that's
good because it will help our recruitment, it will help our programs."

Lab Inventors Receive Royalty Checks

Director Charles Shank (fifth
from left, center row) handed out royalty checks to Berkeley Lab inventors
during a ceremony held in Shank's office. Deputy Director Pier Oddone
(to Shank's right) was also there to congratulate the winners. The checks
are awarded yearly for inventions developed by Lab researchers and licensed
through the Technology Transfer Department.

Director Shank congratulated the inventors and shared
some good news about the royality income. "I am pleased to note there
has been more than an eight-fold increase in the royalties distributed
to inventors in the last four years alone," Shank said.

Rubin, Celniker Win AAAS Prize

Among the ensemble of sequen-ced
genomes chosen as Science magazine's "Breakthrough of the Year"
(see Currents, Jan. 12) was that of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
The lead authors who reported the ground-breaking success will be awarded
the Newcomb Cleveland Prize at next month's meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Gerald Rubin, UC Berkeley genetics professor and head
of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP), and Susan Celniker,
codirector with Rubin of the Drosophila Genome Sequencing Laboratory in
the Lab's Life Sciences Division, will share the $5,000 prize with J.
Craig Venter and Mark Adams of Celera Genomics.

The four were the lead authors among hundreds of signatories
of a group of papers appearing in Science last March 24. They will receive
commemorative medals at a Feb. 17 ceremony during the AAAS annual meeting
in San Francisco.

The Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the oldest AAAS prize,
was established in 1923 to recognize an outstanding paper published in
Science, which is published by the AAAS.

More information about Berkeley Lab's contribution
can be found in the Fall 2000 issue of Research Highlights (on the main
Lab website under Research Highlights, click on "The Whole Fly").-
Paul Preuss

UC Regents Approve Age Factor Improvement in Retirement
Plan

UC faculty and staff will see increased retirement
benefits in the future as a result of the "age factors" improvements
in the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP), passed by the
UC Board of Regents on Jan. 18 . The action, effective Jan. 1, was part
of an effort to reward employees and enhance recruitment.

The new age factors - a figure used to calculate the
salary percentage upon retirement - will start at 1.1 percent at age 50,
increasing in increments of .14 percentage points per year to 2.5 (up
from 2.41) percent at age 60, and constant thereafter. This represents
an increase in benefits ranging from 1 to 20 percent, depending on the
retirement age.

The age factor multiplied by the employee's years
of service results in the percentage of monthly income to be provided
at retirement.

By increasing the age factors, and hence the retirement
benefits with age, the plan promotes retention of current faculty and
staff.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System
adjusted its age factors last year. The UCRP proposal was adopted by the
Regents after extensive consultation and a comprehensive asset/liability
study.

Also on Jan. 18 the Regents approved a one-time cost-of-living
adjustment for UC retirees and their survivors who retired before July
1, 1985. The action is effective Jan. 1.

Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California
for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Berkeley Lab's New APS Fellows

Four Berkeley Lab physicists
were among the 194 APS Fellows elected by the American Physical Society
in 2000. The honor is bestowed by the APS on only one half of one percent
of the total membership each year.

Berkeley Lab's honorees are:

Kevin Lesko, Nuclear Physics

For outstanding experimental contributions to the
study of neutrino properties - searches for neutrino oscillations -- and
their application to the solar neutrino problem.

Saul Perlmutter, Astrophysics

For pioneering contributions to cosmology, including
development of new search techniques that led to discovery of numerous
distant supernovae and strong evidence for the accelerated expansion of
the universe.

Hans-Georg Ritter, Nuclear Physics

For his leading role in the discovery of the collective
flow of nuclear matter.

Michael Zisman, Physics of Beams

For his key role in storage ring designs of synchrotron
radiation sources and electron-positron factories, authoring the ZAP design
code and in the design, construction and commissioning of the PEP-II/LER.

The fellowship program recognizes APS members who
made advances in knowledge through original research, publication, or
other significant contributions in the application of physics to science
and technology.

This year, 194 physicist were added to the fellowship
rolls.

Chattopadhyay to be Associate Director at Jefferson Lab

By Lynn Yarris

After a nearly 25-year association
with Berkeley Lab, Swapan Chattopadhyay, a physicist with the Accelerator
and Fusion Research Division (AFRD) who heads the Center for Beam Physics,
is departing. On March 19 he will assume his new responsibilities as Associate
Director of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson
Lab) in Newport News, Virginia.

"It is particularly difficult for me to leave
Berkeley after all these years," Chattopadhyay said. "In all
my travels and global associations with universities and institutions
worldwide, I have yet to find the likes of my Berkeley colleagues in matching
their intellectual and technical capacities and their innovative and creative
spirit. I will miss being immersed in this truly outstanding flow of intellectual
traffic."

Chattopadhyay came to UC Berkeley in 1974 as a physics
graduate student. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in physics in 1982, he spent
two years at CERN as a scientific attaché. He then returned to
Berkeley Lab and has been a fixture here ever since, serving as a major
contributor to numerous national and international projects such as the
Advanced Light Source, the B Factory, and the Super Proton-Antiproton
Synchrotron collider at CERN. In 1987 he became the leader of AFRD's Exploratory
Studies Group and used this position to establish the Center for Beam
Physics (CBP) in December 1991.

The CBP is a multidisciplinary research group of about
50 scientists and engineers whose mission is to study the production,
manipulation, storage and control of particle and light beams and plasmas.
Under his leadership, CBP researchers have been at the forefront of such
technological breakthroughs as femtosecond x-ray generation and laser
plasma beam acceleration.

At Jefferson Lab Chattopadhyay will oversee research
and development as well as operations of the main continuous electron
beam accelerator facility (CEBAF), plus the lab's free electron laser
facility, light sources program, applied superconductivity and superconducting
radio-frequency R&D center, and its cryogenics and engineering programs.
He will also hold an appointment as the Governor's Distinguished CEBAF
Professor of SURA (Southeastern Universities Research Association).

"Jefferson Lab, in keeping with its tradition
of bold conceptual and technological steps, is poised on the verge of
great developments and I am honored by the confidence placed in me with
this appointment," Chattopadhyay said. "I have been charged
with pushing the scientific frontiers based on their technology even further.
In my new capacity, I look forward to continuing collaboration with Berkeley
Lab in further enhancing the cutting edge of science and technology."

Jim Harris Left His Mark on Science and Community

By Lisa Gonzales

When James Harris first began
looking for a job after graduating with a B.S. in chemistry, he was met
with shock and incredulity. It was 1955, and many employers found it hard
to believe that an African-American was applying for a job as a chemist.

"I was even given a job test simple enough for
elementary school kids - basic addition and subtraction," Harris
said in a 1973 interview with Ebony magazine. "I told the secretary
I didn't need a job that badly." He did get a job at Tracerlab in
Richmond before coming to what was then the Lawrence Radiation Lab in
1960. Here, he became a member of the team that discovered elements 104
and 105.

Harris, the first African-American scientist to participate
in major programs to identify new elements, died last Dec. 12 of a sudden
illness. He was 68.

Born in Waco, Texas in 1932, Harris moved to the Bay
Area in his teens and returned to Texas to earn his degree in chemistry
from Huston-Tillotson College, where he also met his future wife, Helen.
They were married in 1957, shortly before he came to the Lab, and had
five children.

As a member of the Nuclear Chemistry Division, he
worked in the Heavy Isotopes Production Group, where he prepared the targets
used in the discovery of elements 104 and 105.

"This was a very difficult process," says
Al Ghiorso, one of the primary researchers involved in the search for
heavy elements, explaining the challenge of minimizing the lead and other
impurities in the target. This required Harris to make painstaking efforts,
repeatedly processing the material. At the time of the discovery of 104,
Ghiorso called Harris' target "the best ever made for heavy element
research."

In addition to his professional accomplishments, James
Harris was deeply committed to the struggle to increase the number of
African-American scientists and engineers, and led the effort here at
the Lab through recruitment and visits with universities across the nation.
This work resulted in awards from the Urban League, the National Organization
for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers,
the City of Richmond, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Black Dignity Science
Institute, and the National Organization for Equal Opportunity in Education.

He was included in the "Black Pioneers"
exhibit at the Oakland Museum, and was inducted into the Black College
Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

"James did a lot of extracurricular things for
young scientists and students, beginning at the elementary school level,"
says nuclear scientist Darleane Hoffman, a good friend and colleague.
"From the first time I met him in the early '60s to the last time
on the day he passed away, he was upbeat, cheerful, and a pleasure to
be around."

Harris used to visit elementary and high schools all
over the area in his attempts to get young people from underrepresented
communities interested in the pursuit of science.

Tammy Campbell of the Technical and Electronic Information
Department was one of Harris' neighbors, and a good friend. She recalls
Harris having his own trading card from a campaign created by Educational
Science Books. The company took the idea of baseball cards and instead
made trading cards for scientists, an item that proved to be a great icebreaker
for Harris with the children he visited. His commitment led him to be
a member of the Big Brothers of America, the Parent-Teachers Association,
and the Far West High School Policy Board.

Harris retired from the Lab in 1988. Although his
community work continued, most of his time was devoted to family, travel
and golf. Harris, along with his wife, often joined friends all over the
United States, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands for friendly rounds
of golf.

Even with all of his accomplishments, Harris is most
remembered by his colleagues for his personal qualities.

"You don't run into people like him very often,"
says Ghiorso. "He was jolly and personable, and a real person who
didn't let success go to his head. He was just a beautiful guy to be around."

Says Campbell, "He always looked out for you.
He lived a well-balanced life with a wonderful family."

In addition to his wife, Helen, Harris is survived
by his five children: Cedric, Keith, Hilda, Kimberly, and James II; his
sister, Doris Blue of Chico; two grandsons, Sudan Williams and Rodney
Wilson; and four nieces and a nephew.

A memorial service for Harris will be held today at
the Richmond Auditorium in Richmond at 5:30 p.m.

Memorial Service Today

A memorial service for James
Harris, who passed away on Dec. 12, 2000, will be held today, January
26, at 5:30 p.m. in the Richmond Auditorium in Richmond, Calilfornia.

Upgrades of Tritium Facility to Save Energy,
Remove Hillside Stack

By Ron Kolb

Berkeley Lab will complete
improvements in ventilation and exhaust systems at the National Tritium
Labeling Facility (NTLF) this year, leading to reduced energy consumption
and improved worker safety.

The new efficiencies, combined with a 10-fold decrease
in tritium emissions achieved over the past 10 years, will render the
present high-capacity exhaust system - including a 28-foot-high emissions
stack - unnecessary. The stack will be removed as part of the renovation
work and a new, smaller stack will be installed on the roof of the building
that houses the NTLF.

Electricity saved as a result of the modifications
is expected to equal the power required by about eight standard houses.
Significant natural gas savings are also anticipated.

Berkeley Lab officials made the announcement at the
Jan. 17 meeting of the Environmental Sampling Project Task Force, a committee
of diverse community representatives who are advising the Laboratory on
a proposed tritium sampling plan. Some task force and community members
have recommended that the Laboratory remove the stack from the hillside
adjacent to the NTLF.

"This action will update and improve air circulation
systems, making an already safe facility even safer and more energy-efficient,"
David McGraw, Director of the Environmental Health and Safety Division,
told the task force. "As a result, the larger exhaust stack will
be unnecessary, and its removal will allow us to also be responsive to
citizen interests."

Air will be vented in the future through a smaller
stack on the roof of the NTLF, which is about 130 feet further away from
the closest off-site receptor than the existing stack.

McGraw told community members that, even though tritium
emissions are already minute and far below maximum levels permitted for
public safety, preliminary air dispersion modeling indicates a probable
reduction in radiation doses to the maximally exposed individual resulting
from the changes. And he assured them, "These improvements will not
result in any increase in emissions or in facility activity."

Laboratory and independent assessments over the last
five years have showed that the annual public dose from tritium emissions
at the NTLF is less than one percent of the public health standard for
air established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for facilities
of its type.

The facility renovations, which include upgrades to
air circulation and supply systems, temperature and pressure controls,
refrigeration and fume hoods, are due for completion by Oct. 1.

The task force, meeting for the eighth time, continued
its work on a draft environmental sampling plan, whose data will be forwarded
to the EPA for a reevaluation of the Lab's priority status for clean-up.
Sampling could begin in certain media as soon as next month. Laboratory
officials believe that the data, once collected, will verify prior independent
health assessments that have concluded the tritium emissions pose no danger
to public or environmental health and safety. EPA officials have stated
it is unlikely that Berkeley Lab will be added to the agency's National
Priority List.

CSEE Open House

The Center for Science and
Engineering Education is hosting an Open House on Feb. 5 from 3 to 5 p.m.
in Perseverance Hall. All Berkeley Lab staff are invited to attend. On
display will be posters describing the new and ongoing education outreach
activities at the Lab. Project coordinators for these programs will answer
questions and discuss opportunities to become involved.

Lab Director Charles Shank will be there starting
at 4 p.m. to thank employees who have assisted with the program. And David
McGraw will discuss the importance of outreach efforts to the Lab's Community
Relations and Public Affairs Initiative.

Refreshments will be served.

Bulletin Board

Lab's Travel Office Staff Plays Santa

By Monica Friedlander

Like millions of other families,
grandma Helen and three of her grandchildren - wide-eyed Chey-enne, 3,
Helen, 11, and Daniel, 16 - ripped open their presents last Christmas
and jumped with joy at the surprises they found inside. But unlike most
other families, this ritual was an unexpected blessing for this homeless
family, who spent the holidays at the home of a Native American Health
Care volunteer in Oakland. As for Santa's delivery, it was made possible
only through the efforts and generosity of a very special group of people
at Berkeley Lab.

Last November, the Lab's Latino and Native American
Association (LANA) put out fliers for a toy and clothes drive. Carol Johnson,
the Lab's Travel Office manager, saw the fliers and contacted Claudia
Quezada, LANA's chair, offering to help - but with a more personal gesture
than most. LANA's co-chair, Bob Torres, knew of an extended Native American
family in need of help, and Johnson and her entire 10-person office staff
offered not just to contribute, but to "adopt" the family.

"What touched me the most is that people who
are not LANA members wanted to be involved," Quezada says. "With
this adopt-a-family program LANA accomplished a very important goal: to
get people involved in helping the community of Latinos and Native Americans
in the Bay Area. It was rewarding for the entire group and it touched
the entire department."

All 10 women in the Travel Office took time every
day during luches, coffee breaks and after hours to go shopping and wrap
gifts for this family - enough to shower each family member with three
gifts.

Quezada did a lot of the legwork herself, everything
from printing fliers to helping load the truck that delivered the gifts.

"Grandma was crying when she saw her grandchildren
receive what she couldn't give them" said Torres, who drove the truck
and delivered the presents.

Torres also picked up toys and clothes for other toy
drives here at the Lab during the months of November and December. "He
had two months to play Santa Claus with his truck," laughed Quezada.

All donations make a difference in someone's life.
But for this one very greatful family, "Santa" says, the efforts
of the Travel Dempartment staff were especially meaningful.

"This was no simple act of giving gifts,"
wrote Torres in a thank you note to the Travel Office staff. "It
was a reminder to them that they are not alone and forgotten."

Karats Sale

"Karats" will return to Berkeley Lab for
a pre-Valentine sale on Thursday, Feb. 1.

A variety of gold jewelery will be on display in the
cafeteria lobby from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

T. Rex on Trial at Hall of Science

Dinosaur demonstrations and special events

Feb. 3 - May 28, 2001

Where was T. rex at the time
of the crime? A new Lawrence Hall of Science exhibit will shed light on
an age-old mystery. Was T. rex a vicious predator or just an innocent
scavenger? Visitors will be the judges in this interactive exhibit of
life-size skeletons, rare fossils, robotic dinosaurs, and activity stations.
Visitors will be able to experiment with the same scientific tools as
dinosaur hunters.

The exhibit is cosponsored by the UC Museum of Paleontology
and was created by the Museum of the Rockies Inc., holder of one of the
world's leading collections of meat-eating dinosaur fossils.

Special events:

Friday, Feb. 2, 6:30 p.m.

Exhibit preview and debate

A lively debate between two eminent paleontologists,
Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University and
Kevin Padian of the Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley will follow
the preview. Advance registration is recommended. Admission is $17 ($10
for members of the LHS, the Museum of Paleontology and UC students).

Saturday, Feb. 3, 9 a.m.

Special Morning Preview for members

Saturday, Feb. 3, 11 a.m.

T. Rex: Guilty or Innocent of Murder: A Talk by Jack
Horner, professor and curator of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana
State University

Demonstrations will be held Monday through Friday
at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 12:30 p.m., and Saturdays, Sundays and
holidays at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Golf Club

Results from the tournament
played last month at the Oakhurst Country Club:

Central Biosciences Administration Moves to Downtown
Berkeley

The Central Biosciences Administration
will move to downtown Berkeley, 2000 Center Street, between Feb. 1 and
Feb. 5. A map of the new location is available at http://www.lbl.gov/biosciadmin.
Anyone anticipating any business with the staff is encouraged to contact
them before the move or after Feb. 5.

The offsite shuttle bus stops at the corner of Milvia
and Center Streets, directly across the street from Bldg. 941. Visitor
parking arrangements will be announced soon.

Keep Your Vehicle Info Up to Date

The Site Access Office would
like to remind everyone that an online, self-service application is available
for employees to add or delete vehicles and otherwise keep all relevant
information current.

FEBRUARY 5, Monday

Announcements for the General Calendar and Bulletin
Board page may be sent to MSFriedlander@ lbl.gov. Seminar & Lectures
items may be mailed to currents_calendar@lbl.gov. You may also fax items
to X6641 or mail them to Bldg. 65B. The deadline for the Feb. 9 issue
is 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 5.

Labs Get High Marks in Annual Report to Regents

William Friend, chair of the UC President's Council
on the National Laboratories, praised the labs in his annual report to
the UC Board of Regents last week.

In particular, he noted in remarks prepared for the
UC Regents, "Berkeley Lab is producing outstanding science and demonstrating
even greater future promise. The Advanced Light Source (ALS) continues
to deliver exceptional capability and performance to an increasing number
of users.

An emphasis on crystallography, with seven additional
beamlines in this area under construction, is allowing high resolution
imaging of very complex protein structures, including the ribosome, the
organelle vital to protein synthesis."

Friend continued, "The Lab's current interests
in nanotechnology are expected to grow and promise real technological
breakthroughs. Computing is also a core competency of the Berkeley Lab,
and, by March, the new computing facility in Oakland will be the most
powerful unclassified computing facility in the world.

"As a final example, and building on truly breakthrough
work on the accelerating expansion of the universe that I mentioned last
year, the Lab is working on a proposal to build a supernova probe satellite.
This is all truly exciting science."

He also singled out the "remarkable joint effort
by the three labs" in sequencing portions of the human genome and
completing the task "ahead of schedule and with a significantly higher
level of accuracy than most of the other academic genome centers."